Manners of the Great Russian Nobility.
I went to spend a day at the country seat of prince Narischkin,
great chamberlain of the court, an amiable, easy and polished man,
but who cannot exist without a fete; it is at his house that you
obtain a correct notion of that vivacity in their tastes, which
explains the defects and qualities of the Russians. The house of M.
de Narischkin is always open, and if there happen to be only twenty
persons at his country seat, he begins to be weary of this
philosophical retreat. Polite to strangers, always in movement, and
yet perfectly capable of the reflection required to stand well at
court: greedy of the enjoyments of imagination, but placing these
only in things and not in books; impatient every where but at court,
witty when it is to his advantage to be so, magnificent rather than
ambitious, and seeking in everything for a certain Asiatic grandeur,
in which fortune and rank are more conspicuous than personal
advantages. His country seat is as agreeable as it is possible for a
place of the kind to be, created by the hand of man: all the
surrounding country is marshy and barren; so as to make this
residence a perfect Oasis. On ascending the terrace, you see the
gulph of Finland, and perceive in the distance, the palace which
Peter I. built upon its borders; but the space which separates it
from the sea and the palace is almost a waste, and the park of M.
Narischkin alone charms the eye of the observer. We dined in the
house of the Moldavians, that is to say, in a saloon built according
to the taste of these people; it was arranged so as to protect from
the heat of the sun, a precaution rather needless in Russia. However
the imagination is impressed to that degree with the idea that you
are living among a people who have only come into the North by
accident, that it appears natural to find there the customs of the
South, as if the Russians were some day or other to bring to
Petersburg the climate of their old country. The table was covered
with the fruits of all countries, according to the custom taken from
the East, of only letting the fruits appear, while a crowd of
servants carried round to each guest the dishes of meat and
vegetables they required.
We were entertained with a concert of that horn music which is
peculiar to Russia, and of which mention has been often made. Of
twenty musicians, each plays only one and the same note, every time
it returns; each of these men in consequence bears the name of the
note which he is employed to execute. When one of them is seen going
along, people say: that is the sol, that is the mi, or that is the
re of M. Narischkin. The horns go on increasing from rank to rank,
and this music has been by some one called, very properly, a living
organ. At a distance the effect is very fine: the exactness and the
purity of the harmony excite the most noble ideas; but when you come
near to these poor performers, who are there like pipes, yielding
only one sound, and quite unable to participate by their own
emotions in the effect produced, the pleasure dies away: one does
not like to see the fine arts transformed into mechanical arts, to
be acquired by dint of strength like exercise.
Some of the inhabitants of the Ukraine, dressed in scarlet, came
afterwards to sing to us some of the airs of their country, which
are singularly pleasing: they are sometimes gay and sometimes
melancholy, and sometimes both united. These airs sometimes break
off abruptly in the midst of the melody, as if the imagination of
the people was tired before finishing what at first pleased them, or
found it more piquant to suspend the charm at the very moment its
influence was greatest. It is thus that the Sultana of the Arabian
Nights always breaks off her story, when its interest is at the
height.
M. Narischkin in the midst of this variety of pleasures, proposed to
us to drink a toast to the united arms of the Russians and English,
and gave at the same moment a signal to his artillery, which gave
almost as loud a salute as that of a sovereign. The inebriety of
hope seized all the guests; as for me, I felt myself bathed in
tears. Was it possible that a foreign tyrant should reduce me to
wish that the French should be beat? I wish, said I then, for the
fall of him, who is equally the oppressor of France and Europe; for
the true French will triumph if he is repulsed. The English and the
Russian guests, and particularly M. Narischkin, approved my idea,
and the name of France, formerly like that of Armida in its effects,
was once more heard with kindness by the knights of the east, and of
the sea, who were going to fight against her.
Calrnucks with flat features are still brought up in the houses of
the Russian nobility, as if to preserve a specimen of those Tartars
who were conquered by the Sclavonians. In the palace of Narischkin
there were two or three of these half-savage Calmucks running about.
They are agreeable enough in their infancy, but at the age of twenty
they lose all the charms of youth: obstinate, though slaves, they amuse
their masters by their resistance, like a squirrel fighting with the
wires of his cage. It was painful to look at this specimen of the
human race debased; I thought I saw, in the midst of all the pomp of
luxury, an image of what man may become, when he derives no dignity
either from religion or the laws, and this spectacle was calculated
to humble the pride which the enjoyments of splendor may inspire.
Long carriages for promenade, drawn by the most beautiful horses,
conducted us, after dinner, into the park. It was now the end of
August, but the sun was pale, the grass of an almost artificial
green, because it was only kept up by unremitting attention. The
flowers themselves appeared to be an aristocratic enjoyment, so much
expense was required to have them. No warbling of birds was heard in
the woods, they did not trust themselves to this summer of a moment;
neither were any cattle observable in the meadows: one could not
dare to give them plants which had required such pains to cultivate.
The water scarcely flowed, and only by the help of machines which
brought it into the gardens, where the whole of this nature had the
air of being a festival decoration, which would disappear when the
guests retired. Our caliches stopped in front of a building in the
garden, which represented a Tartar camp; there, all the musicians
united began a new concert: the noise of horns and cymbals quite
intoxicated the ideas. The better to complete this entire banishment
of thinking, we had an imitation, during summer, of their sledges,
the rapidity of which consoles the Russians for their winter; we
rolled upon boards, from the top of a mountain in wood with the
quickness of lightning. This amusement charmed the ladies as much as
the gentlemen, and allowed them to participate a little in those
pleasures of war, which consist in the emotion of danger, and in the
animated promptitude of all the movements. Thus passed the time; for
every day saw a renewal of what appeared to me to be a fete. With
some slight differences, the greater part of the great houses of
Petersburg lead the same kind of life: it is impossible, as one may
readily see, for any kind of continued conversation to be kept up in
it, and learning is of no utility in this kind of society; but where
so much is done only from the desire of collecting in one's house a
great multitude of persons, entertainments are after all the only
means of preventing the ennui which a crowd in the saloons always
creates.
In the midst of all this noise, is there any room for love? will be
asked by the Italian ladies, who scarcely know any other interest in
society than the pleasure of seeing the person by whom they wish to
be beloved. I passed too short a time at Petersburg to obtain
correct ideas of the interior arrangements of families; it appeared
to me, however, that on one hand, there was more domestic virtue
than was said to exist; but that on the other hand, sentimental love
was very rarely known. The customs of Asia, which meet you at every
step, prevent the females from interfering with the domestic cares
of their establishment: all these are directed by the husband, and
the wife only decorates herself with his gifts, and receives the
persons whom he invites. The respect for morality is already much
greater than it was at Petersburg in the time of those emperors and
empresses who depraved opinion by their example. The two present
empresses have made those virtues beloved, of which they are
themselves the models. In this respect, however, as in a great many
others, the principles of morality are not properly fixed in the
minds of the Russians. The ascendancy of the master has always been
so great over them, that from one reign to another, all maxims upon
all subjects may be changed. The Russians, both men and women,
generally carry into love their characteristic impetuosity, but
their disposition to change makes them also easily renounce the
objects of their choice. A certain irregularity in the imagination
does not allow them to find happiness in what is durable. The
cultivation of the understanding, which multiplies sentiment by
poetry and the fine arts, is very rare among the Russians, and with
these fantastic and vehement dispositions, love is rather a fete or
a delirium than a profound and reflected affection. Good company in
Russia is therefore a perpetual vortex, and perhaps the extreme
prudence to which a despotic government accustoms people, may be the
cause that the Russians are charmed at not being led, by the
enticement of conversation, to speak upon subjects which may lead to
any consequence whatever. To this reserve, which, under different
reigns, has been but too necessary to them, we must attribute the
want of truth of which they are accused. The refinements of
civilization in all countries alter the sincerity of character, but
when a sovereign possesses the unlimited power of exile,
imprisonment, sending to Siberia, &c. &c. it is something too strong
for human nature. We may meet with men independent enough to disdain
favor, but heroism is required to brave persecution, and heroism
cannot be an universal quality.
None of these reflections, we know, apply to the present government,
its head being, as emperor, perfectly just, and as a man, singularly
generous. But the subjects preserve the defects of slavery long
after the sovereign himself would wish to remove them. We have seen,
however, during the continuance of this war, how much virtue has
been shown by Russians of all ranks, not even excepting the
courtiers. While I was at Petersburg, scarcely any young men were to
be seen in company; all had gone to the army. Married men, only
sons, noblemen of immense fortunes, were serving in the capacity of
simple volunteer, and the sight of their estates and houses ravaged,
has never made them think of the losses in any other light than as
motives of revenge, but never of capitulating with the enemy. Such
qualities more than counterbalance all the abuses, disorders, and
misfortunes which an administration still vicious, a civilization
yet new, and despotic institutions, may have introduced.